Light Neutrinophilic Dark Matter from a Scotogenic Model

TL;DR

This paper introduces a minimal sub-GeV thermal dark matter model that interacts mainly with neutrinos, contributes to neutrino mass generation, and predicts observable signals like neutrinoless double beta decay and lepton flavor violation.

Contribution

It proposes a novel scotogenic model where dark matter interacts with neutrinos and influences neutrino masses, with specific testable predictions.

Findings

Predicts a massless lightest neutrino.

Enhances neutrinoless double beta decay rate.

Suggests detectable monoenergetic neutrinos from dark matter annihilation.

Abstract

We present a minimal sub-GeV thermal Dark Matter (DM) model where the DM primarily interacts with neutrinos and participates in neutrino mass generation through quantum loop corrections at one-loop level. We discuss the challenges in achieving this in the scotogenic framework and identify a viable variant. Due to minimality and the interplay between obtaining the correct DM relic abundance and neutrino oscillation data, the model predicts (i) a massless lightest neutrino, (ii) enhanced rate of $0\nu \beta \beta$ decay due to loop corrections involving light DM exchange, and (iii) testable lepton flavor-violating signal $\mu\to e\gamma$. Detecting monoenergetic neutrinos from DM annihilation in next-generation neutrino detectors offers a promising way to test this scenario.